Digital Technologies, Children's Learning and the Affective Dimensions of Family Relationships in the Home

This chapter considers how children’s use of digital technologies at home shapes family relationships, notably those of parents and young children growing up in some Minority World families, typically characterized by an increasing access to and prevalence of digital technologies in their everyday lives. The chapter reviews literature on digital technologies in the context of families, with a particular focus on touchscreen technologies. The chapter uses a number of examples to illustrate the wider implications of technology use on family dynamics. It offers an exploration of how the physical design of touchscreens, and in particular the different touch points through which the device can be accessed simultaneously or sequentially by different individuals, can influence the affective flows between children and different individuals in families (parents, grandparents) as they interact together. The review of previous research into affective dimensions of technology use at home is theoretically guided by Goffman’s (1972) consideration of participation frameworks and ecological huddles, as well as by the more recent insights of Goodwin (2000) as to how affect plays out through embodied interaction in the context of a family setting. Vygotsky’s (1967, 1978) notion of sociocultural learning and the contextual nature of learning are used as a framework in the review of studies focused on child’s learning and adult–child interaction with touchscreens. The chapter provides insights into the learning opportunities of touchscreens in family contexts in relation to two key affordances of touchscreens: touch manipulation and personalization. It considers the verbal as well as nonverbal modes of communication in examples of interaction occurring around touchscreens in the home. Recommendations for future research are provided along with the suggestion that children’s learning and the affect flows, which emerge in interactions involving digital technologies, reflect the nature of the technologies’ affordances situated in the wider sociotechnical context in which interactions are unfolding